


Sunshine in the Dark

by Kauri



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Grey Warden Alistair (Dragon Age), Hand Kink, I mean... ish., Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Slow Burn, Warden Bethany Hawke, aftermath of the joining, like slow burn for me, mild sex pollen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-01-24 08:58:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18568123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kauri/pseuds/Kauri
Summary: “What’s your name?”“Bethany Hawke,” she says, and sticks out her hand like an idiot, the way her mother always taught her –– palm down like a lady, not a secret apostate, or an up-jumped refugee, or whatever she is now.He takes her hand, thumb brushing across her knuckles the way a well-brought up man’s lips might. “Alistair. Welcome to the Ferelden Wardens.”***What if The Joining made you not only super hungry... but super horny too?





	1. Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarsaparillia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarsaparillia/gifts).



> Because the teeny-tiny ships deserve love too. (And eventually, sex.)

****It happens because Bethany twists her fingers in her hair.

It is habit now. Like smiling at Templars.

A trick she learned so long ago she can't even remember _not_ twisting her fingers in her hair. The only one of Malcolm Hawke’s children touched by Malcolm Hawke’s greatest secret. Garrett had his daggers. And Carver had his sword. And she had her fingers all up in her hair.

(Carver always used to say that was why she was the only Hawke with curls, and he said it with the smug superiority of one whose hair stayed perfectly straight and orderly even in the wet sticky heat of summer. So she’d lick her palm and muss his hair until it stuck out in whorls and cowlicks.)

(Oh, how she misses her twin.)

She had to do something to keep her hands busy –– busy with something that _wasn’t magic._ Busy doing something a _normal_ girl might do. Because normal girls don’t shoot lightning from their fingertips when they’re startled or stressed.

It was supposed to keep her _safe._

Garrett and Carver learned to charge ahead, blades bared, all muscles and sweat and unrestrained steel. And unrestrained curses. And unrestrained rage.

(She has never been unrestrained for a moment in the whole of her life.)

But Bethany –– she has her fingers in her hair when the hurlock hits. Stupid, stupid. Never learned to reach for her magic before her hair.

She’s three heartbeats too slow. Feels a tearing pain in her side even as her spell blooms from beneath her, all rock and thunder and the hurlock’s dead before it hits the ground. But she’s dead too, she just doesn’t realize it. Not until black begins to fill her veins and swallow her senses.

Stupid. Is _this_ what Carver died protecting?

He should have had the chance to grow up and grow old.

Now neither of them ever will.

_Taint._

It is such a grim word.

It’s harder than she thought. Dying. More painful. She clutches her side and tries not to cough up anything alarming. Garrett already looks so –– Maker, no one should _ever_ have to look like that, with the broken, red bits of his soul sticking out at ungainly angles. She thinks she can’t see him looking like that and die peacefully.

Carver didn't die peacefully. There was blood on his lips, and terror in his eyes, and ––

Maybe none of the Hawkes are destined for peaceful ends.

Not Father. Not Carver. And one has only to _look_ at Garrett to know he'll go wreathed in violence.

But Bethany's always been such a good girl. So careful not to break her family's heart. But here she is down in the dark, with the taste her own end on the back of her tongue. The bitter certainty of death.

Garret is going to be _so mad_ at her. And Mother –– _oh sweet Maker, Mother…_

Varric keeps muttering platitudes under his breath, as though a Surfacer has any domain over the deep dark places of the world. But Anders knows the truth of it the minute he puts his hands on her; Justice flickers grimly behind his irises.

It hurts _so much_ just trying to breathe.

And ––

And…

_Oh._

_Carver._

 

***

 

A face. “Hello?”

Bethany blinks, and then promptly closes her eyes again.

She was dying, wasn’t she?

Shouldn't she have done it by now? It seems only mannerly.

“You’re not dead,” the face says rather dubiously.

She opens her eyes again to be sure. It’s a nice face, bronze and faintly freckled, but it’s not one she recognizes.

 _“Garrett––?”_ She croaks and flings her arm out, reaching. Her brother would be near.

“Oh. Was that the _shouty one_ with the terrifying… and, ah…  rather… ” the face casts about looking for a diplomatic word to describe her brother, and instead gestures to his own chin. “Um... _beard?”_

She sits up. Or tries to. Or does something else that must be equally distressing for the face –– which she can see is a _whole_ person now, with startlingly broad shoulders and faded blue armor. A _Warden?_ –– presses her back to the floor with a sound of alarm.

“Hey now, none of that. You’ve been out for a day and a half. Stroud… that is, the Warden-Commander wasn’t… was sure you wouldn’t –– well. You’re not dead.” He says again, firmly, as though she might change her mind about it at any moment.

“Where is my _brother?”_ The words come out like a shaky rasp, all jagged edged with dread.

“He was your brother then?” The Warden with the face inquires, dark auburn brows shooting up in surprise.

 _“Was?”_ She does sit up then, though the Warden keeps her from rising further. She can feel his hand at the small of her back, and against her shoulder, holding her steady. And she fights the inane urge to reach for his other hand as the world tilts on its axis, and black spots flit across her vision. Because Garrett _isn’t._ Garrett _would never ––_

“No no no, hey. He’s not dead. Stroud took some men to escort them back to the surface. Never should have been this deep. Surprised any of them made it out in one ––” He clears his throat, looking embarrassed. “Well, hmm.”

She clutches her side automatically, but there’s no pain now. The blood is gone, wiped cleanly away, and she can feel the ridges of new scar tissue beneath the rents of her gown.

“You were lucky you brought a healer. Luckier still that the healer was a Warden –– _is a_ Warden,” he corrects himself with a frown. “You never really get to leave the Order, after all.”

She fastens on the only word in that sentence that doesn’t give her terrible vertigo. _“Lucky?”_ she repeats inanely.

Something in his expression goes soft and gentle. “What do you remember?”

Nothing. Everything.

_Papa’s hands filled with light, cupped around her own, helping the magic flow out of her clean and clear and easy. Mother’s easy smile as she knelt to kiss her goodnight, long fingers brushing gently through her curls. Garrett’s new beard growing in sparse uneven patches across his jawline, strutting in circles around his smooth-cheeked little brother. And Carver –– awkward and surly, only half-grown, feet already too big for father’s boots. Carver –– curled beside her at night, holding her whispered secrets close to his heart. Carver –– eyes like blue fire, flushed and breathless from swinging around that bloody great sword of his. Carver –– the smothered snort-chuckle he’d make when he was startled out of gruffness and into laughter. Carver –– pale and spotted with blood, eyes going cloudy, surprise and determination still stamped on his features._

She shakes her head mutely, surprised by the tears that fall.

“What’s your name?”

“Bethany Hawke,” she says, and sticks out her hand like an idiot, the way her mother always taught her –– palm down like a _lady,_ not a secret apostate, or an up-jumped refugee, or whatever she is now.

He takes her hand, thumb brushing across her knuckles the way a well-brought up man’s lips might. “Alistair. Welcome to the Ferelden Wardens.”

 

***

 

The other Wardens give her a wide berth. Giving her time to adjust, Alistair insists, but in truth Bethany doesn’t care _why,_ she’s just glad for the distance. It’s too much. Losing Garrett, and her freedom, and the sunlight all at once. And Mother… she cannot even bear to think of her Mother.

Only Alistair keeps her company.

It’s a while before she can see past her own misery to notice how he shadows her every step.

He’s –– well she’s not sure what he is. He’s young, and noticeably _un_ grim, with an easy self-deprecating humor he applies freely once he’s certain she’s not going to die of shock, or stubbornness. He smiles too much, all lopsided and crinkly. And though he’s never loud –– none of the Wardens ever are –– she has the distinct feeling he was, once.

And he's handsome ––

(From somewhere in the world above, Garrett is rolling his eyes.)

–– well he is –– tall and broad-shouldered, skin a surprisingly sunny bronze. And it's not a _crime_ that she notices. No one was ever supposed to notice _her,_ but somehow Mother forgot to teach her the other way round.

She watches Alistair with the other Wardens. Half-a-head taller than the lot of them, he sticks out like a shiny new penny –– hair as coppery bright as his smile. There are eleven in all. All well accustomed to this role. Even Alistair, if the faded blue of his uniform is any indication, has been a Warden for some time. There is an easiness between them all. A synchronization of their movements that reminds her forcibly that the Warden’s are a disciplined military unit, not the ragtag assortment of misfits she’s used to. And yet there is undeniable warmth in the way they interact. Constant small touches. A jostle of the hip. A brush against an elbow. A soft slap against a back. Remnants of a physical sort of communication that exist in a world that is often dark and silent.

A Warden’s world.

Her world now.

She shoves her fingers in her hair.

For a moment she's too busy blinking the tears from her eyes that she doesn’t notice Alistair sitting back down next to her, until he passes her a bowl of something steaming that smells of nothing she’s able to identify.

“Dinner,” he offers. He eyes her portion critically, and scoops out nearly all of his own meal into her bowl. “You’ll be hungry,” he says in a tone that books no disagreement.

She is, she realizes suddenly. Ravenous. But she forces herself to take the bowl from him calmly, with a murmured word of thanks before she dips her spoon and takes such an enormous, hasty bite that she scalds her tongue before she realizes ––

“Something wrong?” He pauses, spoon halfway to his mouth, eyebrow cocked at her queer expression.

“I can’t _taste_ anything.”

 _“Ah.”_ The line of his mouth smooths out. “Sorry. I’d forgotten to warn you about that, but it’s perfectly, um… _normal,_ if such a word can apply to the Wardens. Something to do with the joining. Just as well you were nearly unconscious for that bit. Your taste buds don’t stop working until _after_ the black draught.” He makes a face at the memory. “Like arse and death. But it’ll wear off in about a month or two, so. _Ironic,_ yes? And patently unfair. But that’s the Order for you.” He sketches a sloppy salute with his spoon. “But we will keep you fed, I can promise you that.”

He says that last bit with a strange sort of solemnity for a man who’s all red-ears and lopsided smiles. It sounds like a vow.

She shoves another bite into her mouth so she doesn’t have to reply, and also because she _does_ feel like she’s halfway to starving –– hollow through to her core and ragged with it. The food is…

It helps, and it… doesn’t. She’s been on the run half her life. Amaranthine. Lothering. Kirkwall. She’s _known hunger ––_ she just hasn’t known _this._ The strangeness of eating and eating and still feeling…

_Unfulfilled._

Her spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl and she frowns.

“You’re not missing much,” Alistair says, eyeing her grim expression. “It’s mostly… well, um, never mind what it’s mostly. It’s _edible._ Or at least it won’t kill you.” He pushes a lump around his bowl with a spoon _“Probably.”_ The corner of his mouth quirks up apologetically. “We haven’t been to the surface proper in _months_ now, and Briggs is a right shite cook. I’m worse though,” he grins brightly. “So that’s you being lucky twice. Didn’t get killed by the joining. Didn’t have to eat my cooking.”

Something about Alistair's smile makes her insides shift. It isn’t discomfort, but it isn’t _not_ discomfort. It’s a bit like having her center of gravity tilt suddenly in his direction and ––

 _Oh,_ hush _Garrett._

 

***

 

Every few hours she has to sit down and _eat_ or she starts to feel hollow and light-headed with it. But Alistair is there for that too, pushing bits of food at her, mostly stale bread and salted fish, but once a dried apple excavated from _somewhere_ that he’d clearly been saving for himself.

He keeps the misery at bay too. Speaking to her whenever he can, low voiced and gentle. Hands fidgeting with the hem of his frayed blue surcoat.

He never strays far from her side. Even when the Warden’s cluster together to discuss _Wardeny things,_ she remains in Alistair's line of sight. Once or twice she catches him looking at her –– gaze distant, brow furrowed. But when he sees her looking back, his expression softens, and she’s the one who has to look away.

The Wardens move more swiftly through the Deep Roads than her brother and his entourage ever had. Even with Anders to guide them, and whatever connection he retained with the darkspawn, their progress had been difficult. In contrast, the Wardens slide almost effortlessly through the tunnels and ruins –– marking an incomprehensibly twisting route through the darkness, as though following instinct or some ancient memory.

Every so often they stop and confer in that oddly silent way of theirs, hand in hand in hand in hand. Communicating as much through touch as anything else. It's fascinating. One of the Wardens leans close enough to Alistair that their foreheads practically touch, mummering something that Bethany can't catch, but Alistair’s ears go a bit pink. He glances back at her briefly, and his body language goes tight, and urgent, and two other Wardens reach over and sort of pat him on the shoulders and back.

She wonders if they’re consoling him for getting stuck with her. That’s a… That hurts a little.

A lot.

She looks away, blinking back tears and a sudden swell of loneliness.

She hears footsteps shuffling towards her, and looks up.

Alistair’s expression is troubled, but kind. He stops a few feet away, blinking, fidgeting with the fraying hem of his uniform. “Are you alright?”

She nods. “Are you?”

The furrow in his brow holds for a moment before it smooths out, and his lips quirk up in a small, lopsided smile. “I’ll do. Mera and Briggs have offered to go on ahead and bring back supplies. The way is clear… well, clear _enough._ But it will take them a full day there and back if they have to go it alone.” He wipes a hand over his face, thinking. “I can’t send anyone else though, in case there’s a fight. You likely wouldn't have the energy to defend yourself, not unarmed, and without proper rest and a proper meal. You’re already so ––” He glances at her, eyes flicking up and down her figure.

For a moment she wonders what she actually looks like now. _Terrible,_ probably.

 _“–– tired,”_  he finishes softly.

“I don’t want to be any trouble.” She frowns, still feeling awkward and wrong footed. Her fingers tangle in her hair.

“You’re not any trouble,” he assures her. “You could never be. It’s just… we don’t usually _do_ _this._ Perform the joining in the dark when we’re ill-prepared, and ill-supplied. It’s no little thing to change someone so entirely, but your brother was quite... insistent.”

“You mean threatening.” Bethany smiles a little despite herself.

“I do.” Alistair’s lip twitches. “But he said you were a mage of no little skill. And _that_ more than anything is what swayed the Warden Commander to intercede on your behalf.” He sighs, the sound low and weary, and gives her a long _look,_ clearly mulling over something in his head. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. “If we push on a bit you won’t have to sleep on bare rock tonight. And we have a –– well the Warden’s keep supplies stashed at certain points all along the deep roads. You’ll do better if we feed you properly, but it’s a bit of a climb, and I'm not sure ––”

 _“Food.”_ Bethany says definitely.

Alistair grins, all wide and lopsided, and Bethany feels her stomach give a decided flip-flop, but she can pretend it’s just the promise of a proper meal.

 

***

 

The climb is a bit more than a _bit._ Bethany can’t judge time in the dark. Nor can she judge distance when everything is laid out in twists and turns, and she’s sure once or twice they double back when the back of her head gets… _itchy_ with something. Two miles? Three? She doesn't know. But Alistair gets more and more anxious as they push onwards, looking back at her more often, with a growing sort of intensity. And once they clamber over a loose section of rubble, she knows why.

The trail ends. Just _ends._ A collapse that occurred ages ago, or maybe the roads were never _built_ beyond this point. There’s just a smooth rock face that just goes up and up and vanishes into the darkness above. _She_ can’t tell, but the other Warden’s are all sheathing swords, and securing their packs, casting speculative, but not uneasy glances to the rock wall before them.

They mean to climb it.

_Oh no._

She isn’t wildly fond of heights, and she’s even less fond of falling from them.

She takes a small step backwards, and bumps right into Alistair.

“Don’t be afraid,” he says, “it isn’t as high has it looks. There’s a tunnel just about fifty feet up, and there are handholds throughout. See there? It’s sturdy. The Wardens have used this wall for centuries. And I will be _right behind you, Bethany._ I won't let you fall.”

There’s something in his voice that reminds her of Carver. The solemnity of the promise. Carver was always the most serious when it came to protecting her. And well… that's _something_ isn't it?

She takes a step towards the wall.

“The first handhold is there. Just follow behind Reece. She'll show you the path,” he murmurs, voice pitched low.

She reaches.

The stone is cold, and though it looks wet –– all black and glossy –– it isn't. The handhold itself is easy enough to grip, the next lingers just above the first, within easy reach. Almost like a ladder of stone.

She climbs the wall. Step by step. Hand over hand. A ponderous pace, and soon they are the only ones left that she can see. She shivers. It feels like it’s getting colder the higher they go, and she wonders what might happen if they were beset by darkspawn right now. They’d _fall_ is what. Down into the silence and the dark.

She reaches, misses the next hand hold and slips. A startled cry, and she slides a heart-dropping foot and a half before she slams into Alistair, below.

_“Ooof! Maker!”_

She grabs at him instinctively, fingers slipping on the smooth edges of his armor, and ends up elbowing him in the ear.

Alistair's arm comes around her, steadying. “I have you,” he says urgently. “It’s alright. _I have you._ Reach for the –– _there!”_ His body weight shifts with her own, supporting her, carefully trailing her up to the next set of handholds. “Again. Do you see the next one?”

She does, reaches, feels Alistair move with her again.

“I’m right here,” he says, “I have you. Up above your head, to the left. Got it? There.”

Handhold by handhold she climbs. Alistair pressed against her from behind and below, urging her on with gentle pressure, and even gentler words. Twice more her trembling fingers slip from the jutting stone, but Alistair is there beneath her, steady as the rock, and she doesn’t fall.

By the time they reach the ledge at the top, it’s not just her hands that are trembling. Her shoulders ache, and her knees wobble, and even when she manages to keep her grip she’s half afraid she’ll just shake herself loose and tumble to the bottom, knocking Alistair off in the process.

She’s not sure she has the strength to pull herself over the edge.

Then all at once she feels Alistair shift beneath her, get a hand braced against her arse and –– _really Bethany, this is_ _not_ _the time to be marveling at the size of his hands –– boost_ her up and over the ledge.

Her arms are unsteady enough that she practically faceplants on the other side. Someone drags her fully away from the ledge, and she looks back to see the other Wardens reaching for Alistair, hauling him to safety.

Alistair flops on his back with a breathless chuckle, feet still dangling over the ledge. “Told you I wouldn't let you fall.”

That sounds like Carver, too.

 

***

 

The cache is little more than a stone slab set into the bedrock, marked with a hastily carved griffon and a series of wards laced with magic strong enough to make Bethany _buzz_ if she stands too close. Inside there’s a neat stack of palettes piled with weapons, and distinctive blue padded armour; straw filled crates cradle rows of gleaming red and gold vials; and barrels of foodstuffs packed nearly to the ceiling of the tiny space.

Alistair strides straight to the back, pries open one of the barrels, and pulls something out. He tosses it to her. “Here, eat that.”

It's a wheel of pale-colored cheese, bigger than the palm of her hand, but not by much. She has no blade on her, but the rind seems soft enough so she bites right through it. She can't taste it, of course, but the cheese has a creamy sort of texture that coats her tongue with every bite.

Alistair peers at her, looking relieved. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” She shoves her fingers in her hair. He’s close enough that she can feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek, which is… _distracting._

“Oh?” His eyes dart down to her lips for half a moment before flitting back up again. “Good… good good… that’s very… uh…”

“Good?”

“Eh?” His gaze drops down her lips again. “What? Oh. That is, um… you have a bit of...  just there.” He reaches with his thumb, as though to brush it against the corner of her mouth, but stops, hand hanging awkwardly in midair.

Bethany pulls away, flushing, hastily swiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. Alistair's gaze lingers on her a moment longer before he looks away.

_Well._

Ok.

But now there's the pair of them standing side-by-side in the awkward silence, _not_ looking at each other, and blushing like mad. And of _course_ Bethany's stomach takes the opportunity to make a loud, _awful,_ gurgling noise that sounds like some mid-sized animal is being slowly and painfully strangled.

Alistair bursts into a surprised sort of laughter.

He ratchets the sound back almost at once, but the grin remains. And he _does_ meet her gaze again, even if he’s still a bit pink around the ears. “Still hungry?” He guesses.

She nods, and his smile pulls a little wider, softening at the edges.

“Well, let it never be said that the Order didn’t feed you proper.”

He digs through several more crates and comes up with another wheel of cheese, a string of dried peaches, a large, squat jar of summer pickles and what appears to be an entire smoked ham shank. Practically a weeks worth of provisions. Her mouth waters. Something must show in her expression, for Alistair chuckles, and leads her to a flattish sort of rock, passing her a small knife from his boot.

“You eat,” he instructs, “I’ll get us settled for the night.”

As the Warden’s make camp, Bethany sits off on her own, eating, and watching. There’s that well-oiled efficiency again, the way they break out supplies from the cache, food and bedding, and flasks of oil. But it’s their strange, wordless way of communicating that makes Bethany’s heart ache for something she can’t even name.

She hears the smothered-wheeze of Alistair’s laugh, and she glances up to see him with his arm slung casually around another Warden at the far-end of the ancient courtyard. There's a little knot of them, all squished together like friendly links in a chain. Each one connected to another.

Bethany watches, becoming aware of a hard-edged _ache_ that’s growing steadily within her.

Alistair has never touched her. Not really. Not like that; easy and familiar. With his big hands, and long fingers, and ––

Oh.

_Oh._

She feels a flush of heat and realization roll through her.

It’s _want._

_Desire._

Well that’s…

…not entirely surprising.

She shifts on her rock, and tries not to look at Alistair. But even so her mind calls up an image of him, clear as anything. Tall, and strong, and kind, and _vivid_ as the sun. His lopsided smile. His easy humor. The steady husk of his voice as he held her against him. _I’ve got you._

She feels that heat between her thighs begin to _throb,_ steady and bright. She’s felt desire before ––  a young woman in Lothering who dreams of romance will readily imagine nights spent with the blacksmith’s thick-armed son –– but this is… _not_ an idle fantasy. It’s ––

The sound of footsteps approaching.

She looks up.

Alistair’s steps falter. He freezes, smiling uncertainly at her.

She smiles back, heart hammering.

Fingers twist up into her hair.

He’s got a bedroll under each arm. Well worn and thin, but clean enough. There’s a pair of faded, mismatched quilts, and a single, flat pillow. He sniffs unobtrusively at each of the blankets, wrinkling his long nose a little, and starts to make up the beds.

Around the clearing the other Wardens are bedding down in clusters, forming a roughly lopsided semi-circle. There’s no firepit, but here and there an oil lamp burns, casting a warm, wavering light over the campsite.

“That’s that then.” Alistair rises to his knees, gesturing invitingly towards the bed with the pillow.

She gives him a look of surprise. A flare of heat blossoms low in her belly.

_Oh._

_Oh yes._

“Oh no no no,” he flushes, shooting her a panicked look as he swipes a hand through his hair. _“No_. No, no. You don’t –– you don’t _have to_ sleep here, or anything. Next to me, that is. I mean, you _can_ if you’d like to. Not that you’d _want to._ Just that you’re, um… _able.”_ Alistair looks like he’s swallowed his own fist. “Warden’s always sleep close together.” He clears his throat and looks away, squinting into some vague, middle distance. “We’ll be safe enough tonight, but some nights there isn’t any choice and––”

“Safe? How can you be sure?”

He blinks and cocks his head at her, “Can’t you tell?”

She… _can._ Somehow. Like a map in her mind she doesn’t remember drawing, but can navigate all the same. The details are blurred. Like looking at the world through the bottom of a brown bottle of stout. But nothing that carries the taint draws near. Nothing except for her. And him. And the handful of Grey Wardens nearby. But the Wardens feel… _different_ somehow. Fuzzy. Safer. “Yes, I suppose I can.”

He nods, and some of his embarrassment lessens, though his cheeks still retain bright spots of pink. He fusses with his bedding for a moment, and mutters something under his breath before sitting down and working off his boots one by one. He sets the boots carefully nearby, and arranges his sword and shield beside them, taking care to ensure they are all easily grasped in case there is a need.

In peace, vigilance.

Though she wouldn’t use the word _peace_ to describe the Deep Roads, anymore than she would the word _safe._

Bethany mimics Alistair. Laying out her own boots in similar fashion, the heels, just slightly splayed. She’s no armor to speak of beyond the chainmail girdle she wears. She hasn’t been given a set of Warden armor yet. She wonders if she has to prove herself first, or if they simply have none to spare.

She tries not to watch as he reaches for the straps of his own armor, and begins to extricate himself, piece by piece –– but not very hard. There’s a little rip along the shoulder seam of his undertunic she notices. A tiny slice of bare skin peeks through and Bethany’s eyes keep sliding back to it as his shoulders shift. She has the strangest urge to touch him right there and feel the fraying linen give way to warm skin beneath her fingertips.

She can feel a faint _buzz_ of anticipation run through her at the thought of touching him like that. Of running her hand up beneath the rumpled linen and finding a wide expanse of bare bronze skin, dotted with freckles and mapped with scars. The dip and curve of his spine as he arches, gasping, shuddering beneath her touch, until ––

“You shouldn't undress,” Alistair blurts out.

Bethany’s fingers still at the buttons on the front of her tunic. She didn’t even realize –– they’re nearly halfways undone, the pale curve of her breasts only just concealed.

He blinks rapidly at her, the tips of his ears going quite pink. _“Sorry._ Not–– it’s not safe. I mean, it _is_ safe, I just said it was safe. And it’s safe. Yes. Very safe. Well… goodnight!” He pulls the blanket up around his ears and promptly rolls over, and away from her.

_Well._

She stares at the broad curve of his back for a moment before carefully doing her buttons up again. For some reason her heart is still hammering in her chest, and she feels ––

Empty, empty empty.

Something like hunger.

Nothing like hunger.

But she’s dizzy and wrong-footed with it.

She breathes through her nose trying to calm herself, but that terrible emptiness persists, sliding down down through her core until it nestles in the cradle of her hips. Hungry. Empty. And all she can think of is how _big_ Alistair’s fingers are. How delicious the stretch would be if he ––

_Bethany Hawke, you are awful._

She lays down, and curls around herself, knees drawing up with a tiny sound of dismay. _What is wrong with her?_ Garrett is probably halfway back to Kirkwall, and doesn’t even know if she’s _alive_ or not, and all she’s barely thought about him –– or Mother –– because she’s too busy _fantasizing_ about a man she _barely_ knows.

Alistair rolls back over, frowning slightly. She stares at him through the fingers laced around her knees.

“Bethy… Beth-aaah-ny. ” He clears his throat and tries again. _“Warden-Recruit Hawke.”_

She blinks, momentarily disoriented. No one ever calls anyone else _Hawke,_ except her brother, Garrett. But she raises her head up off her knees to look at him. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what you call me now.”

“You still have a _name,”_ Alistair says solemnly, and props his head up on his elbow. “The Wardens take much from you, but not that.” His ears are still a little red.

“How long have you been a Warden?” She asks.

“Oh. Well, longer than any in this sorry lot. I joined the Order when I was nineteen.”

 _Nineteen._ Bethany blinks. He can’t be more than a handful of years older than that. There's only the faintest crinkle of lines at the corner of his eyes. She counts backwards in her mind. “You were a Warden during the fifth blight,” she says, surprised.

“I was.” Alistair’s countenance grows momentarily serious. He looks like wants to say more, but after a moment he presses his lips together with a slight shake of his head. Almost a shiver. _“I was.”_

“My brother was killed in that blight,” she says after a quiet moment. It seems important, somehow. “My other brother. Carver. My twin.”

Alistair looks stricken.

“It's not so terrible I suppose,” she continues thickly, “killing the darkspawn that took Carver. I can do that, I mean. That's… that's a life.”

Wordlessly, Alistair reaches out and grasps her hand. Fingers tight around her own.

_A good life, maybe._

It is surprising how little it matters that it is not a life of her own choosing.

But then, she has been waiting the whole of her life for this day. Waiting for _something_ to come and claim her for their own, and rend her family apart. It was always inevitable. The price to be paid for the magic flowing beneath her skin. A debt owed to the the Chantry. To the Templars. It is somewhat of a relief to have it over and done with. And the Wardens offer her something the Chantry never could: _vengeance._

 _And Alistair._ A tiny, crazy part of her mind offers.

Her hand twists, fingers entwining easily with his own.

She's not sure how long they lay like that. Rolled so far towards each other they are each halfway out of their own beds. A strange spiral of emotion rolls through her. Grief. Guilt. Terror. Relief. Hope. Hunger. And a sense of longing, so strong it colors the edges of everything else she feels.

She _wants._

_Maker, what does she want?_

“Are you alright?” Alistair asks. His voice is all husk.

“Of course,” she says automatically, hiccuping back a tiny sob.

Alistair frowns. There are faint freckles across the bridge of his nose, she sees. His voice, pitched low, drops lower still. “Are. You. Alright?”

She blinks hard. Hopes that the dimness will disguise her tears. But she and Alistair are practically nose to nose. And even if he can’t see her, he's sure to hear the wet sort of snuffling noise she can't seem to stifle. She shakes her head, confused.

_“Beth…”_

There’s something about the way he says her name that cuts through the grief. A startling bolt of sunlight through the clouds.

 _“Hey,”_ he whispers, and reaches out with a single finger to touch a teardrop hanging on her cheek. He stops half an inch away from touching her. “Oh bugger,” he says very, very softly. Almost to himself.

But his fingers tighten around her own, and he doesn’t let go, even as she drifts off into a strange, foggy sleep, where dark shapes move at the back of her mind.

 

***

  
In the morning, his hand is still in hers.

And she is _starving._

 

 


	2. Taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bethany feels more effects of the joining.

Warden Commander Stroud, when he returns, is exactly what she imagined. Tall –– taller than Alistair even –– and thickly muscled, with hair as black as her brothers’, and a long, bristly mustache that curls at the edges. He wears the same padded blue uniform as all the Wardens do; with silverite studs and embossed with an intricate griffon, wings unfurling across his breastplate. The sheer volume of dents in Stroud’s armor, and the faded rents in his undertunic are the only outward sign of his seniority.

Stroud looks her up and down in an opaque, measuring way, and she resists the urge to step a little closer to Alistair. “Let’s see what Anders brought us.” He tosses her a staff, gesturing briefly, and the other Warden's fall away –– though Alistair is slow and stumbly about it –– leaving her alone in the center of a rough circle. 

It’s unnerving. She’s not sure she’s had this many eyes on her in the whole of her life, and the urge to try to tuck back into a corner, or shove her fingers in her hair is so _strong_ –– just a normal girl, doing normal girl things –– but she is a _Hawke._

And a Hawke, never runs from a fight. 

“Runsk,” Stroud commands, and a squat, barrel-chest of a dwarf steps forward; a Rogue with a pair of small hand-axes. 

Bethany smothers a smile. The whole of her life she's sparred with her brothers. Father made sure of it. Hiked them all far into the wilderness behind Amaranthine and Lothering, so the sparks wouldn't show, and had her take them in turns. Broadswords, then daggers. Carver always pulled his blows, the great big softie, but Garrett never did. And now, she can fight rogues –– or warriors with broadswords–– with her eyes closed.

Alistair, though…

She glances at her ––

(protector, companion, friend)

–– at _him._

Alistair is wearing the most extraordinary expression. Something wedged between uncertainty and outrage. 

It makes her want to brush her fingertips between his brows to ease the creases there. Which is… an entirely irrational desire given that she's facing off with a man who looks as though he’s spent his life murdering people in dark alleyways, and would gladly do the same to her. 

He reminds her a bit of Isabela, and her heart squeezes at the thought.

Runsk flips one of the axes in his hand, catching it with such a practiced ease the motion is almost unconscious.

She narrows her eyes, and takes a deep breath.

_Focus, Bethany._

She adjusts her stance, just slightly. Letting her knees bend and bringing her weight to the balls of her feet. An imperceptible back-and-forth shift that brings her magic to the surface of her skin.

It isn't easy, even now. It's sluggish and hesitant at first. A weight dragged through water. She was taught to keep her magic locked up inside her, a thousand feet down. She learned it so well she got Carver killed, and nearly got herself killed. 

(And nobody ever talks about how father died, but Bethany's always wondered.)

Maybe it's a good thing she's gone now, and away from her family, before she had the chance to get Garrett and Mother killed too.

But the dwarf at her front has no patience for melancholy. He's subtle, giving no sign of his intentions, until he's flying towards her, the cutting edge of his axes glints hungrily.

Bethany's unarmored. Bare from the elbows down. Half of her dress is still in tatters. But that doesn’t mean she’s unprotected.

Sparks fly off the the barrier she'd been building close to her skin. It’s a thinly transparent shield, but strong for all that, the way Father taught her. 

A mage must make their own armor.

She’s used to having her barrier startle opponents into hesitating, but Runsk doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest, and starts hacking away at it with an alarming alacrity.

She dodges the next blow. Sliding out of the way with a breath of magic to propel her. The ground moves to make way for her, stone shifting as easily as sand.

 _That_ surprises him.

She gets a brief flare of satisfaction, but he swings one of his axes back her with enough speed that she can do little else besides block the blow with her staff. The metal on metal draws sparks, and Bethany grinds her teeth as the impact jars all the way up to her shoulders.

He gains ground, hacking away at her, brutal and methodical, forcing her back. Once or twice she misses blocking, and the edge if his axe clips her barriers, with a shower of sparks, and the ear-splitting shriek of claws dragged over steel.

But then he _twists_ the axe as it lands, gets the underside of the curved blade hooked around the underside of her staff, and _yanks_ it straight out of her hands, knocking the underside of her chin hard enough that she sees stars.

How nice. She misses she sky.

There's a flash of pain, and something wet ––  blood? –– slips down her chin.

_Damn._

Somewhere behind her, Alistair makes a brief, angry noise.

She can cast near as well with her staff as without, but it’s harder to control. And once loosed, her magic presses tight under her skin, wanting to burst free. Wild and terrible thing. She tugs at it, at the little knot under her breastbone that always feels like a too shallow breath. A tightness in her core that she can never undo.

Her fingertips are glowing green.

Why does she feel so dizzy?

She flings a handful of lightning at Runsk, and another of ice, slinging it beneath his feet. The lightning goes wide, but it nearly blinds them both, as the darkness gives way to the sudden burst of light.

Dazzled and on unsteady ground, he ought to slip, and fall. But instead, Runsk disappears. The air shivers and streaks before it swallows him in darkness, and dammit she _hates_ when Rouges do that.

Bethany jerks back and to the left, fully expecting to shelter for a moment behind Garrett's bulk –– because what is she except a collection of bad habits –– and the startled shock of finding him not there leaves her breathless. Garrett has _always_ been there. Carver to her right, and Garrett on her left. But he’s gone –– they're  _both_ _gone_ –– and she’s never going to see him again. The shock of her brother’s loss rolls through her with fresh, sharp-edged grief. 

Her magic responds in kind, turning brittle and jittery beneath her palms.

Panic and magic are a _terrible_ combination.

She glances at Alistair, unnerved. 

He’s pacing back and forth in sets of three steps. Shield unlimbered and slung over his arm. His eyes flick suddenly to the space behind her shoulder, and she flinches away as Runsk reappears behind her, axes whirling. 

The dwarf isn’t as fast as Garrett, at least, but he's _stronger,_ and swings his axe with enough force to shatter bone.

But _she_ has the blood of Malcolm Hawke in her veins.

Bethany shatters the barrier around her. It sounds like glass, but it breaks like steel, all sharp-edged and dangerous. Runsk is close enough that one of the little bursts of energy catch him full in the face, cuts a line across his cheek, staggering him, spilling blood into the ruddy tangle of his beard.

If he were a bandit or slaver, this is the part where she'd light him on fire.

(No one ever said the Hawkes weren't ruthless to the bone.)

But they're sparring, not playing for keeps. So instead, she sets the floor between them ablaze. 

Runsk jumps back with a startled _“Fuck!”_

The fire doesn't catch –– there's just bare rock beneath, so she must sustain the flames herself. It's like lifting something heavy with her entire body, even her lungs feel the strain of it. But she lets the wall of flame rise and rise, until it towers above the dwarf, _threatening,_ in a way only fire can be.

She burns through most of her mana in half a minute, which is _not normal_ –– she's only ever had too much magic, never too little. Sweat breaks out along her hairline, slides down between her shoulder blades, she can feel fatigue dragging heavily on her limbs. Her arm shakes but she forces the magic out as the ground begins to sway gently beneath her. 

The fire falters a bit when she drops to a knee, but it doesn't go out, and for a moment she's not sure she can sustain it.

She knows the second she hits the bottom of her mana reserves, a sensation of utter _wrongness_ that skitters up her limbs. Like an _awful_ bone-on-bone grating from somewhere deep within her. The sweat across her brow turns clammy.

The fire sputters, turning weak and wispy enough that Runsk is able to wade through it with a stony determination on his face.

She scrambles backwards, nerves raw, legs shaking, and hears Alistair's voice all terse and sharp, and she didn’t even know he could _sound_ like that.

And then –– 

 _“Hold.”_ It’s Stroud, louder than she’s heard any of the Wardens’ speak.

Runsk lowers his axes at once, though it takes Bethany several long moments for her fists unclench enough to allow her to drop the spell. And even then the magic –– thin and tired as it is –– presses to the surface of her skin, choppy like the waves at the Kirkwall docks.

"You’ll do,” Stroud says with a stern sort of approval, and glances briefly at Alistair, “so long as you two can stop mooning at each other long enough to keep from getting yourselves killed. Maker save us all from infatuation.”

A few of the Wardens snicker good-naturedly, and Alistair goes red as a summer tomato.

 

***

 

Bethany’s days find a strange sort of rhythm. Food. Fighting. Hunger. Not-hunger. Alistair by her side during the day, with his smiles and his jokes and his bumbling awkwardness. Alistair by her side at night as well, curled up together, all knees and elbows that never touch. Alistair’s breath against her cheek as they sleep. Alistair’s bulk, stalwart in the darkness. Alistair, flushing red in the mornings when he wakes, arm half-flung around her during the night.

They whisper together sometimes in the tiny span of time between rest and sleep. Tiny, inconsequential things. How he's always been fond of the color yellow. How she hated being the only Hawke with curls. They stumble at times. There is so much hidden wreckage strewn across her heart –– and Alistair's too. But he's patient with her, and doesn't seem to mind when the conversation falters and she has to gulp back tears, remembering all at once that something as simple as rain has been lost to her.

(A downpour. Hair slick-stuck to her skull. Papa teaching her how to hold a flame in the rain. Carver had poked Garret with a stuck when he'd laughed at her. Drowned rat, he’d said. Mean. But she could tell from Carver's expression it was true, though he'd rushed to defend her anyways.)

(And she cries for the rain because it hurts too much to cry about anything else.)

She wonders if he'll begin to drift away. She needs him less and less each day. Some of the others have begun to make cautious overtures towards her –– Runsk is downright _friendly_ –– and surely Alistair has other duties, _Warden duties_ to attend to. Despite his youth, it's becoming clear that he’s one of the most senior in terms of rank, in whatever way Wardens _have_ rank.

He speaks, and they listen.

They give her a uniform the day after she spars with Runsk. The blue of the tunic is so bright it's nearly _ultramarine,_ with silver toggles, and silver buckles, and a panel of chainmail all down her front.

It doesn’t make her feel like she belongs, not when the rest of the Wardens are covered in dents and rust and faded blue patches, and her armor’s new enough to _squeak._ But she ties her curls over one of her shoulders to help her unlearn old habits, and hopes this is the start of something, and not the end. 

Stroud gives her a once-over, and an approving nod when he sees her. Runsk shoots her a wide grin through the tangle of his beard, but Alistair stops dead in his tracks, ears gone all red.

“You look, uh––”  Alistair blinks rapidly and clears his throat, “Like a Warden. You look like a Warden.” 

Runsk makes a flat sounding snort and digs his elbow into Alistair’s ribs. “The word you're looking for is _pretty.”_

Bethany’s nose wrinkles a little as she fights back a smile. “I’ve never worn armor before. Not like this anyway.”

It was only ever leather and linen for her. And now it’s silverite and chainmail, and enough enchantments to put a fizzy sort of _bounce_ in her step.

“It suits you.” Alistair says in a rush, and looks away.

A ridiculous warmth spreads through her bones no matter how she tries to tamp it down.

And well, it’s _ridiculous,_ and Bethany bends her head to hide her expression. “Thank you.”

Runsk snorts. “Why are you thanking him? _I'm_ the one who said you were pretty.”

Behind them, Stroud clears his throat softly, and Alistair glances up, seems to interpret something in the Commander's minute gesture, and heads down the path to where the rest of the Warden’s are gathering, snagging Runsk neatly by the back of his uniform as he goes.

“It’s a _habit_ you know.” Stroud says, coming up beside her.

“What? Oh, Alistair?” She shoves her fingers into her hair, startled. They tangle in the ribbon. “What’s a habit?”

“The _foolishness.”_ Stroud’s eyes narrow as he looks out to where Alistair stands. “I'd say it was an act, but there's no dishonesty in the boy. Don't let it fool you. He‘s something of a legend in the Order.”

Below, Runsk makes a show of scratching his backside. Alistair makes a show of offering to help him.

Stroud snorts, the exasperation of the sound slightly dampened by obvious fondness. “He's the only living Warden who has tangled with an archdemon. You've heard of the Hero of Ferelden?” 

“Everyone’s heard of the Hero of Ferelden.”

Stroud makes a pleased sounding grunt, and inclines his head. “Alistair kept him company, for a time. Fought with him from Ostagar to Denerim. They took down an archdemon together. Ended the fifth blight.”

_Carver was at Ostagar._

_Alistair was at Ostagar._

Two halves of her life, nearly touching.

Bethany’s mouth goes dry. “Why are you telling me this?”

“He’s never spoken to anyone about it.” Stroud says. “But he ought to, in case the Warden’s ever have to do it again.”

“Why are you telling _me_ this? Surely one of the Wardens ––”

Stroud raises a brow at her.

“-- one of the _other_ Wardens would be better suited. I barely _know_ Alistair, why would he…” She trails off at the look on Stroud's face; amused, and annoyed, and a little pitying. She tugs absently on a coil of her own hair.

So much for new beginnings.

“I wouldn’t want to pry,” She says at last.

 _“Politeness_ is not a much valued trait amongst Wardens. I would not want to lose anyone under my command because of it. _Ask,”_ he insists. “It is a request. Need it be a command?”

She shakes her head mutely, fingers against the griffon wings unfurling across her new breastplate. 

 

***

 

It is three solid days before she manages to speak to Alistair of Stroud’s request.

She isn't avoiding it –– not really… well, not _much._ But Bethany’s days begin to fill as her Warden training begins in earnest, and at night she falls into bed beside Alistair –– in her own bedroll, clad in breeches and tunic, at a respectable and increasingly disappointing distance –– too exhausted and hungry for conversation. 

A surprising amount of a Warden’s time each day is spent preparing for a fight that never seems to come.

Despite the worn appearance of their uniforms, they keep their gear and weapons in pristine condition, buffing out scratches and rust, repairing straps and fastenings at regular intervals. _Her_ armor is still blindingly new, so she has no upkeep to speak of besides a daily inspection to show she knows what's-what with gear maintenance, glad she'd made a habit of listening to Aveline's lectures, instead of ignoring them. So she paces behind Alistair, watching him work, out of excuses and already feeling like a coward.

She takes a nervous breath. “Stroud wanted me to talk to you.”

Alistair shoots her a quick grin over his shoulder, squinting one eye a little as if looking into the sun. “Oh?” 

She swallows a sudden giddiness. “About the Archdemon.”

 _“Oh.”_ The easiness in his expression fades at once, like a candle being snuffed out. It’s strange to see such a closed look on his face. “What about it?”

She _refuses_ to stick her fingers in her hair, so she wrings her hands instead –– will she ever be anything but a mess of anxiety and uncertainty?

“He wants to know how you killed it.”

Alistair turns away and back to the bracer he’d been mending, the line of his shoulders carries enough tension that she’s glad she can’t see his expression. “Well for starters, _I didn’t.”_

He falls silent, re-stitching chainmail to leather with jerky, impatient movements. Then all at once he rounds on her. 

“Archdemons aren’t –– you stab it, and it dies, alright?” He twirls the bracer between his hands, glaring, heedless of the dangling needle. “A hell of a fight, I’ll grant you, but fairly straightforward for all that.”

“That can't be all,” she says, conscious of the white knuckled grip he has on the bracer, and the tension that ratchets up and down his entire frame.

Alistair scratches the tip of his long nose. “Yeah, well. What they don't tell you is that whichever Warden strikes the killing blow will die as well. Each time. No matter. A life for a life I suppose you could say. I dunno what happens if someone who's not a Warden kills the Archdemon. I don't even know if anyone else _can_ kill one.” 

“Is that how the Hero of Ferelden died?”

Alistair shoots her a sharp look, but after a moment he nods. “Nobody called him that until ...after. Emmory Cousland. _Em._ He was a hero, but he was also just a –– a _person,_ you know?”

“A friend,” she offers softly.

“Yeah.”  He falls quiet, brows pulled together in thought. “He wasn’t supposed to die, though. It was supposed to be me. Not the Archdemon –– well, that too I suppose. But Morrigan had a way out of it. She was one of Em’s... a mage ––  a witch, maybe. I dunno.” He shrugs a shoulder in a jerky, hitching motion. “She wanted a child… or _needed..._ I’m not sure. But she said if we slept with her –– not together I don’t mean, just one of us. With her. If we… well, there’d be a child, and no Warden would be culled when the Archdemon was killed.” He’s squeezing the bracers so tightly his hands are shaking, knuckles.white and sharp. “She said –– she _promised,_ but… But…” 

“He died anyway.”

“Yeah,” Alistair whispers hoarsely, and swipes the back of his arm across his eyes. “I don’t –– maybe she was wrong, or it didn’t work, or _something.”_  He makes a humorless sound. “Maybe Morrigan just _lied.”_ His fists clench and unclench at his sides erratically. “So," he says with a sort of stiff finality, _"that’s_ how you kill an Archdemon."

He falls silent again, turning, abruptly giving her his back.

Bethany lingers. How can she _not?_ Hurt and guilt _radiates_ from him in waves, and her hand hovers in mid-air, wanting –– needing –– to soothe it. But it's so obviously a dismissal, and she doesn't need to see his face to know his jaw is fixed in a stubborn, silent line. For all his smiles and easy charm, he can be surprisingly stoic when he wants to.

Her hand drops. "Thank you," she whispers hoarsely, "for telling me."

His shoulders hunch, stiff with tension.

Bethany turns to go, and all at once Alistair whirls and grabs her hand, pulling her back towards him.

“Morrigan asked me first,” he says urgently. “To be with her. I just –– I said no. They tried, but Em died anyway. He just… _burst_ at the seams. Just _gone_ in this sudden flare of light. There wasn’t even anything left to bury." He flings the bracer against the nearest wall, the sound louder than anything Bethany’s heard in weeks. "What a bloody _waste.”_  

He pulls her closer with a ragged sound, nearly against him, tipping his forehead to hers. He's breathing hard, all wet and noisy, but his cheeks are dry. All that pain locked up tight inside him.

Her heart _pounds_ from the close contact, from the rawness in his eyes and in his voice. And she _aches_ for him, hard and sharp like a gut-wound. For Emmory. For Carver. For what they’d both lost in the blight.

He makes a wet sound, shoulders shaking. His fingers tighten around her own. “So it’s my fault, you see. I didn’t even try. But I… It was… I should have –– But I was–– stupid selfish _bastard.”_  

He looks very much like he wants to kick something.

“You’re not selfish Alistair,” she says quietly. “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.” She reaches up with her free hand to cup his face, thumb smoothing the sharp lines bracketing his mouth.

Alistair's eyes close, and he relaxes into her touch with a sigh. He turns towards her, just slightly, almost as if to plant a kiss against her palm, and then ––

His eyes fly open, and his body goes rigid. “Beth…”

There’s something strained in his voice. Not _panicked,_ but tight, and urgent.

And everything inside her goes tight and urgent too, but in a completely different way.

“Beth,” He says again carefully, and deliberately drops her hand. 

She takes a deep breath through her nose. She can’t smell him, but she can feel the warmth of his breath against her skin, and the tiny pickles of his beard on her palm. And a delicious heat _slides_ down through her core, and into the cradle if her hips, where it blooms, plucking at that empty _ache_ within her, drawing it to the surface of her skin. 

She shivers.

 _"Beth,"_ Alistair repeats. His fingers close around her wrist, tugging her hand off his face, pulling away, even as she rises up on her toes to kiss him.

"What?" She blinks in a hazy sort confusion, and tries to step back into the warmth of his arms. 

But Alistair pushes her back, gently but firmly. Then turns, and walks away. 

And the empty silence is ringing in Bethany's ears.

 

***

 

She tells Stroud what Alistair had said, and Maker, it feels like a breach of his trust. The Warden Commander listens stone-faced, and gives no indication if it's what he had hoped to hear. It's–– Bethany can't get over the injustice of it all. It usually takes _scores_ of Wardens to stop a blight –– this one killed her brother, and Aveline's husband, and King Cailin, and nearly half of all living Wardens, and _thousands_ of other simple folk –– and what is one more life atop a mountain of bones?

But it _matters._ It does.

(Maybe only because she knows Alistair would never let another Warden stand in his place again. If there is a sacrifice to be made, it would be he who makes it.)

But Stroud just nods, and tells her she's done well, and she just wants to shove her fingers in her hair and scream, and scream.

Wants to crawl back into the warmth of Alistair's arms–– 

Wants to crawl straight into Alistair's bed –– 

Wants those big hands of his on her skin, and in her mouth and –– 

And she's very glad when Stroud calls for the Warden’s to move out, even if Alistair doesn't look back to see if she's following.

 

***

 

That night she sees Alistair hesitate before he rolls their bedding out, just a little further apart than he used to. Three extra feet of distance she doesn't understand.

It feels like it might as well be as wide as an ocean.

She doesn't know how to fix it, and she’s not even sure what's broken.

"I'm sorry," she says at once, as soon as she lays down.

"Not your fault." There's something hard in his voice, a chip of flint that wasn't there before. He sighs and scrubs his hand across his face before flashing her a brief, troubled smile. "Let's just forget about it, 'kay?"

She nods, but he's already rolling away from her, wrapped solidly in his own blankets.

After a moment his voice floats out of the darkness. "Goodnight, Bethany."

She closes her eyes, and doesn't answer.

 

***

 

Bethany dreams.

But it isn't like any dream she's ever had. It's like time has folded all up on itself, like a memory overlapping. She’s in the small cottage her family kept in Amaranthine. Fewer windows than rooms, and a braid of garlic strung over the doorway. Her father is there, with his dark hair cropped all short, with its patch of silver on one side where his hair is going grey in a giant splotch. But Alistair is there too, sitting at the same table, only not. He's cast in the light from a campfire, hair fluttering in a non-existent breeze. And yet they’re _talking_ –– she can't hear them, a strange loud rustling drowns them out, but they are. Alistair says something, and her father laughs. _Laughs._ And she can't hear it, but it still warms her straight through.

She sits by the table beside them, next to Alistair, watching this strange conversation play out. She forgot how her father used to knit his fingers together as he talked, thumb worrying at his old garnet ring. Beside him, Alistair’s smile is wide and easy and he brushes a slick of wet off the back of his neck, and wherever he is –– beyond her childhood home –– he’s sitting in the wind and the rain.

She watches them for hours, or moments maybe. Caught in that strange dreamstate where time is meaningless and infinite and everything rushes and stretches and drags all at once. And then Alistair turns to her, _sees_ her somehow, and that smile of his grows broad, until he’s _absolutely beaming._ And she cannot help but smile back at him because…

Well, because –– 

There's something –– not a sound, a _feeling_ –– from behind, and Bethany turns, rising from the chair. 

And _Carver_ comes through the door. 

_Carver._

He doesn’t open it. Or go _through_ it. And yet he sort of does both those things. But he’s _there._ Tall and fair as he ever was only –– no, not fair. Pale. Nearly bloodless, except for a stripe of crimson running from nostril to chin. And there’s no other color in the room except for that streak of blood.

No other color in the world.

“Carver?” She grabs at his shirt without thinking and it’s solid beneath her hands, but cold.

Everything is so cold.

 _“Bethany,”_ he says, voice cutting through that rustling sound even as it rises to a cacophony. His head tips forward and she can see the angle of his neck is all wrong, and a bone-deep fear blooms in her chest. _“Run.”_

She looks to Alistair, desperate, but he isn't smiling anymore. He's grimacing, arms braced against the table as though he can barely support himself. And the rain on his face isn't rain, it's _blood._ Pouring down. Drenching him. Enough that his shirt is soaked through entirely. The muscles in his arms and chest stand out, inhumanly taunt.

Her father’s different too. All the warmth sucked out of him, all the meat and marrow, and he’s just rickety, old skin stretched over bone. Eyes sunken. Garnet ring hanging loose on his finger. 

Bethany moans, small and neat, that strange rustling sound in her ears.

And then they’re sort of _melting._ And blurring. Two men made of ink, not flesh and blood, twisting into nothingness as the blood-rain hits them.

And it doesn’t just rain, It _pours._ Her hair, slick-stuck to her face, obscures her vision, but she watches as her father and Alistair evanesce –– passing out of sight and existence like wisps of smoke, and turns back to Carver with a swallowed sob, terror lying thick in her throat.

Only it isn’t Carver at all.

A crack of thunder and the walls of the cottage disappear, and the thing beneath her hands rises, growing, unfurling. Black scales, and black eyes, and wings that stretch out into the storm. A dragon, but worse.

Foul.

Decaying.

Fear given physical form.

Templars and demons are what usually haunt her nightmares. But the thing that looms before her is so utterly unnatural, so visceral and _wrong_ that her old fears seem almost childish and silly. Her mind scrabbles for some semblance of rationality, a word to anchor her in the chaos.

_Archdemon._

The enemy of all Wardens. Mother of the Taint. Father of the Blight. God of the Darkspawn.

Horror.

Death bringer.

The thing that blooms in her belly so thick and raw, words like fear and terror fall woefully short of the sensation. But it’s red and solid enough that for a moment, her heart all but stops beating. 

Bethany screams.

But the only sound that comes out, is that same rustling sound –– the Archdemon’s scales, she realizes, rattling in the storm. Surrounding her. Engulfing her.

Inside of her too.

She bolts upright in a flurry of motion, wide awake and gasping for breath. Her heart aches and her head is buzzing with the fitful sound of paper wings.

 _"Damnit,"_ Alistair says with feeling, looking at down at her. He's already awake, arms wrapped around his knees. His hair sticks up at odd angles as though he has been tearing his hands through it, but he gives her a weak, slightly lopsided smile. “Hey. You’re safe now.”

Her mouth feels dry as old leather, and she coughs, trying to slow the frantic pace of her heart. “I…”  Her breath shudders out of her like a sob. “What _was_ that?”

"We eat together, we sleep together, sometimes we dream together." He shrugs, sort of, it's more like shaking off the remains of his own nightmare. "I was hoping you wouldn't –– not yet anyway." 

"Did we dream the same thing?" She asks in a voice so soft it’s barely a whisper.

"Probably not." He says, almost a little tersely. His lips press together in a hard line, and he keeps glancing at her, uneasily. “Uh… you were there though.”

"You were in my dream, too."

Alistair looks at her again. _"Yeah."_ It's not a question really, it’s a word built from a sigh. He watches her for a long time, hands curled tight around his knees. 

From somewhere out in the dark she hears Runsk grumble in quiet annoyance. “Arsebite darkspawn. Just trying to get some fookin’ sleep, for once.” 

There’s a rumble of agreement from several others in the camp, but not from Alistair. He just sits with his hands wound round his knees, breathing in softly ragged breaths. 

“Hungry?” He asks after a while.

She is, but she shakes her head.

“You should try to get some rest then.”

She closes her eyes, but she doesn't sleep. And Alistair spends the rest of the night sitting bolt upright, trembling hands clenched tight around his knees.

 

***

 

There is a monotony to the deep roads she finds. They search for darkspawn. Eat. Walk. Walk some more. Consult an oversized and ancient map that Stroud guards with a feverish determination. It isn’t like any map Bethany has seen, it’s laid out by the depth of region, not distance, and filled with tiny notes and annotations where the underground cities have shifted or crumbled away.

Stroud teaches her to read the map. She struggles with the scale of the thing, judging distance seems impossible, and she can’t pronounce any of the place names well enough to keep him from shaking his head at her, but after a while, she _can_ at least tell where they are going. That is, she can see that they _aren’t_ going anywhere. Just winding around in little random whorls and turns, a leaf caught in a directionless breeze.

It strikes Bethany as odd, this fitful meandering. 

"Where are we going?" She finally thinks to ask.

"Nowhere in particular." Stroud says mildly.

"Then what are we even doing down here?" Bethany asks, finally. "We're not actually _doing_ anything, are we?"

Surprisingly Stroud looks to Alistair, who frowns silently for nearly a minute before answering. "We’re being hunted.” His voice is quiet and serious.

“Hunted?” Her voice sounds oddly steady. “By the Darkspawn?”

Alistair shifts from foot to foot, and Stroud sets a hand on the back of his neck, the gesture casual and intimate, and Bethany is struck again with how easily and often the Wardens touch one another. If she’d done the same to Alistair he would have likely stepped away from her. But Alistar just nods, looking calmed by the touch. “Yeah."

"They are always a threat of course," Stroud says, not removing his hand from Alistair's neck. "But they are not usually so… _concerned_ with our presence."

The ghost of Alistair’s voice floats back to her, from when she was newly made.

_We don’t usually do this… perform the joining in the dark..._

A horrible thought crosses Bethany's mind. “Is it… Is it because of me?”

Stroud and Alistair exchange glances again.

“Of course not,” Alistair says, the same moment as the Warden Commander’s “It is.”

Alistair grits his teeth, glaring at Stroud. “But it’s _not your fault,”_ he insists. “Honestly.” 

 _"I'm_ putting you in danger?" It should be easy by now to swallow such guilt, she has practice enough. But it isn't.

_Keep Bethany safe._

How many times has she heard that phrase, spoken in low voices to one of her brothers when her parents thought she couldn’t hear. Never with bitterness or frivolity, but with perfect solemnity. A vow that every Hawke learned young.

_Keep Bethany safe._

But no matter what her family has sacrificed –– security, peace, _Carver_ –– she’s never really been safe, has she?

Alistair drags his hand through his hair, “It’s not like they don’t stalk us anyway, all the time. And fighting darkspawn is _what we do,_ Beth."

“Then why _aren’t_ we fighting them?”

Stroud's touch moves to Alistair's shoulder. A brief, fierce grip of camaraderie.

“Because you aren’t ready,” Alistair says, every word quiet and clipped.

And it's true. 

But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

She’s never been the girl she ought to be. Never able to swallow her magic back, only able to choke on it. Never been the mage anyone needed either. Papa used to cradle magic as though it was the easiest thing in the world, with two feet on the ground and an unshakable faith in himself. Bethany just –– isn’t _that._

“I know,” She clears her throat, armoring herself in her own wounded pride, enough that she can look him straight in the eye. “I know I’m not a very good mage.”

Alistair blinks, horrified. “Beth, that’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?” She can’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “I’m not an _idiot_ Alistair.”

For a moment he looks like she slapped him. A flare of hurt, deep and bright. “I didn’t say that! I would _never say that.”_

Her fingers find her hair.

He closes his eyes, and if she’s hard to look at. “Five schools of magic, Beth. That’s what you cast when you sparred with Runsk. You do know that most mages can barely manage three. And you’re only a month into the joining, so your mana pool is shot. You shouldn’t have even been sparring at all, not that soon after the joining, when you’re so tired you can barely stand upright at the end of the day.” He shoots Stroud a pointed and very dark look, but Stroud doesn’t seem the least bit concerned. “You should be sleeping and eating all day, that’s it,” Alistair says firmly. “Not walking around every hour of the day, and _not fighting darkspawn.”_

Bethany takes a breath. The anger in her belly dissipates at once, because she isn’t really angry at Alistair. 

She isn’t really angry at anyone.

Still.

“I don’t _need protecting,_ Alistair,” she insists, but there’s no heat in it.

"Maybe not.” He is mouth twists into a flat line, voice rising. “But has it never occurred to you that you are _worth protecting?"_

Bethany blinks, startled into silence.

And then, all at once the Warden’s fall quiet. They’re never loud, even at their rowdiest, but now all sound drops off so abruptly that it sends a frisson of dread through Bethany's core. Alistair and Stroud don’t look at each other but they do turn in perfect synchronization, heads canted sharply to the left as if hearing –– or sensing –– something Bethany does not.

Stroud issues no command that Bethany can see, but the Warden’s all begin to move as one, gliding towards the edges of the clearing, low to the ground. Moving like oil over water, disappearing in the shadows behind broken bits of rock and rubble.

And then Bethany feels it. A murky sort of _awareness_ that creeps up the back of her skull. It has no shape, not really, but she knows what it is. _Darkspawn._

Coming towards them.

Coming fast.

And Bethany is just standing there by herself out in the open like a –– well, like an _idiot._

Alistair looks back and freezes, horrified, then he makes a split second decision, she can see it in his face. He turns and comes sprinting back towards her, abandoning all stealth for speed.

“What––”

Alistair abruptly claps a hand over her mouth, and all but yanks her to the ground. Her staff jams awkwardly on the floor, and she goes down hard on one knee, but he manages to drag them both behind a large boulder just before the darkspawn come through the tunnel entrance.

She tries to count them in her mind, stretching her half-developed Warden senses out, but they just feel like a writhing mass of darkness. _There,_ but indistinct. She doesn’t know how many, but… _enough,_ surely. They sound awful, the scratching rattle of armor, and the steady _hiss-snarl_ of their voices. No language, and yet they speak, calling back and forth between themselves.

Alistair carefully raises his hand from her mouth, signaling her to remain silent.

She folds her arms around herself, trying to will her heart not to beat so loud. If she closes her eyes she can sense the other Wardens on the opposite side of the clearing, huddled together, waiting for the darkspawn to pass.

Just waiting.

Waiting.

Shuffling footsteps down the path in a hitching, inhuman gate.

The sound of Alistair drawing his dagger seems impossibly loud, the tiny scrape of metal exaggerated by the silence. But she feels a bit better knowing he has a blade in hand.

She risks drawing a tiny, shaky breath.

Waiting.

Wait.

One of the things _shrieks,_ the sound jarring and far closer than Bethany expected. She can’t tell one darkspawn from another by sound alone, but the look on Alistair’s face is grim. The thing shrieks again, or _another one_ does. It’s not the sound of attack, but still the effort to _not_ cast a barrier around Alistair is so strong she’s shaking with it.

Breathe, Bethany, _breathe._

Swallow the magic back. _Swallow it back._ You’re not a mage, you’re just a girl. There’s no magic there. You’re just empty. Just normal.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

No magic.

Nothing.

Breathe.

Swallow.

Breathe.

But she can feel it prickling at her palm. The light of the spell trapped just under her skin. 

Paper thin. Like cobwebs.

_Breathe, Bethany!_

And Alistair reaches out and closes his hand over her own.

_Oh._

Everything inside her shifts at once, the panic evaporating in the face of something else that demands her attention.

_Him._

Alistair’s hands are big enough that they cover hers completely, and all she can see is bronze skin with a spray of faint freckles along the back. The sleeve of his uniform is bunched up a little, and she can see where the hair on the backs of his arms grows fine and dark, each one standing up on end.

A bead of sweat slides down the side of his neck and she reaches up to brush it away, thumb against the wildness of his pulse.

Alistair shivers beneath her touch.

He’s looking straight at her, clear brown eyes with blown pupils.

Waiting, waiting.

What are they waiting for?

“Bethany…” He says softly, teeth fixed in his lower lip.

And Stroud nudges Alistair with the tip of his boot. “Alright then, enough heroics. Get up.”

“Oh Maker damnit fuck.” A relieved breath rushes out of Alistair, and he drops her hand and rises, motions jittery and disjointed from too much adrenaline.

Bethany feels slow and syrupy. She catches a _look_ that passes between Stroud and Alistair, but has no idea what it might mean.

She rises, her knee creaks stiffly. “What?”

Stroud rolls his eyes.

There are no darkspawn, just the rest of the Wardens wearing varying levels of bemused expressions. The backs of Alistair’s ears are red.

“What?” She says again, head foggy.

No one answers, but Runsk shoots her a _very_ wide grin.

 

***

 

That night Alistair lays out their bedrolls as always, side-by-side and little apart from the rest of the Wardens. 

(And more than a little apart from each other.)

There's been more darkspawn activity, so they set a watch for the night, and Alistair takes the first shift, leaving her coiled in her blankets, brim full of uncertainty and wet between her legs. 

She shoves her fingers in her hair. But the old gesture does little to calm her. She can feel the tension bouncing under her skin. Like electricity. She’s used to shoving the magic down inside of her, so it’s strange that the thing that’s bubbling up inside of her isn’t magic.

It’s _desire._

A vicious, bright-eyed lust.

It's been growing in the pit of her belly, alongside her hunger. Just as demanding, just as voracious. 

Just as difficult to ignore.

 _Impossible,_ she realizes bleakly. 

Like trying to stare into the sun without going blind.

Only the sun is Alistair's smile. And his laugh. And the warmth of his hands.

The feel of his pulse skipping beneath her thumb.

 _Infatuation,_ Stroud had said. But she knows it's _more._

It feels like truth. Like _gravity._ Inescapable, and weighty.

And as much as she feels pulled towards him, he seems drawn to her. At least… he feels _responsible_ for her, which isn't the same at all.

Not nearly the same.

So it's no surprise that Alistair brings her food after his watch. He holds out a piece of dried bread to her with a bit of something brown scraped over the top, and she feels her stomach begin to unfold from it's little ball of misery. 

And she _hates_ it.

She can measure the day with how hungry she is –– is she hungry enough that she's raw and bitter with it, hand clenched tight across her belly; or is she hungry enough that she's dry heaving in the corner, while Alistair flits beside her like a worried butterfly.

Her life is all broken up into little pieces of need and _need more,_ and all the other bits of her are worn away, smooth and meaningless and she doesn't even _recognize_ herself anymore. She's not the girl pretending not to have magic anymore. But she's not a Warden either. They're serious and stalwart and steady and she's just…

_Hungry._

She turns away.

“Beth?” Alistair’s voice is low and _painfully_ kind. “It’s been a long day. You need to eat.”

“I’m tired of eating.” She says, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “And I’m tired of being hungry. And I’m tired of being tired.” She covers her eyes with her hands.

_And I’m tired of wanting you._

But that isn’t true.

She's tired of nearly everything right now. But not Alistair.

Never Alistair.

“It doesn’t last,” he says. “Really it doesn’t. You’ll go back to you, only… you know, a _you_ who can sense darkspawn, and see in the dark, and survive the taint. _And_ Orlesians find us _really annoying._ So that's a plus isn’t it?”

“You can see in the dark?” Bethany asks, lifting her hands and blinking around her. Everything still just looks dark to her.

 _“And_ annoy Orlesians. Why does no one ever focus on the truly important things?” He sits beside her on the bedroll and holds the bit of food out to her again. “Take it. Please? You'll make yourself sick if you don't.”

She sighs. It’s a wasted effort. She knows she’ll just be hungry again nearly as soon as she finishes… but it’ll keep that expectant, worried look off Alistair’s face if she eats. “Fine.”

When she reaches for the food, her magic sort of jumps...like a hiccup against her skin, reaching for Alistair, canting gently towards him. It hasn't done that in _years_ , not since her magic was young and wild and impossible to hide. And _of course_ it leans toward _him._

“It doesn't bother you that I have magic?” It’s a question, sort of. At least she meant it to be. But it doesn’t sound like it. Her voice goes flat on the end and it sounds like a statement of fact, as though she already knows it’s true.

And somehow, she does.

Alistair grimaces, and goes quiet for a long time, scratching at the stubble at his chin than never seems to grow any longer. “I was meant to be a Templar once, you know.” 

Bethany blinks, trying and failing to imagine him in a uniform that isn’t blue, wrapped in the quiet violence of every Templar she has ever known. “What happened?”

He runs his hands through the front of his hair, where it always sticks up in a cowlick. “Well, I was good at the fighting bits, and the looking intimidating in the armor bits.” He adopts a sudden sternness of carriage and expression for a moment before sliding back into his own easy charm. “But not so much the rest of it. Patience. Prudence. Propriety. Protection. Perseverance,” he says in a sudden, monotonous rattle. “I was terrible at it in fact. A truly terrible Templar.” He flashes her a tiny grin. “I suppose I’d rather you didn’t burn my eyebrows off when you’re asleep, or… you know, when you’re _awake_ either. But no. It doesn't bother me.”

He’s quiet for a moment watching her eat. “I can’t imagine you in a circle though. That would be… ” He reaches out, thumb soft on her lower lip, brushing away a crumb. _“Heartbreaking.”_

Bethany’s breath catches.

Such a tiny little thing, his thumb on her lip, not even a square inch of contact, and yet it’s the most erotic thing Bethany has ever felt. She leans into his touch, mouth opening a little, and presses her tongue against his thumb. It’s not even a kiss, not really it’s just… _instinct._

It just feels right.

Alistair’s eyes are wide and impossibly beautiful. A clear, warm brown, framed with dark auburn lashes. _“Bethany...”_ His voice breaks on her name, and she thinks she could live a _thousand_ years and never get tired of the way he says it, soft and reverent, with the syllables all strung together in a single breath. But then, “Please, Beth… please don’t.”

Bethany blinks. Confusion wells within her, and she pulls away, ignoring how much it hurts to do so. She _hates_ the way his voice sounds now. All broken down the middle and strained at the edges, and _what is she doing?_ He shows her a little kindness and she’s practically _fellating_ his thumb.

_What is wrong with her?!_

She was only ever good at holding back her magic, but never her doubts. Never the fear and the uncertainty that comes spilling out. Never the grief and sudden loneliness.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispers raggedly, wishing she could say it a thousand times. “I-I don't know why I keep –– I don't understand myself anymore.”

“Hey now,” Alistair says, for a moment it looks like he wants to disentangle her fingers from her hair, but he doesn't. “I _know._ I know what it is you’re feeling. I remember the –– like you’d been hollowed out with a spoon and whatever they put inside didn’t fill all the empty spaces behind your ribs. Beth, I –– I _remember._ The _joining…_ it’s so much _more_ than surviving the black draught. You’re not the person you were –– not _physically,_ anyway –– but it takes _months_ to change into the person you’re going to be.” He shakes his head helplessly. “It’s _my_ fault, Beth. It’s mine. I shouldn’t have ––” He cuts himself off with a terse sound.

“Shouldn’t have _what?”_

A muscle in his jaw clenches. “Shouldn’t have touched you.”

She grits her teeth. “Why not?”

“Well, because you… you know,” his ears turn a vibrant shade of red. “The… um… _arousal.”_ He says the word so carefully, with all the syllabus round and awful, and she wonders if he’d mind terribly if she crawled off somewhere and died.

She swallows, utterly speechless, but she thinks she makes a wheezing sound of distress in reply.

Alistair chuckles awkwardly. “The joining doesn't take everyone quite the same. I'd rather hoped… but, uh... _I_ was just like that,” he says with an apologetic shift of his shoulders, too awkward to be a shrug. “A little. A little more than a little. I had a constant and embarrassing, um, _attraction_ to… well, it doesn't matter who, but it ended… I suppose badly would be an understatement. I was crushed. And um, very very chafed in… hmm.” He scrubs a hand through his hair making it stand up in wild little spikes. “But it did end.”

_What if I don't want it to end?_

“I’m just saying, _I understand,_ is all.” He takes a shaky breath. "And it… _passes,_ like everything else to do with the joining." Alistair’s mouth twists up into a sudden smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. “And then… you’ll be fine.”

Bethany shifts her head, mutely. It isn't a nod and it isn't a shake. It's a gesture of absolute helplessness in the face of that constant tangle of hollowness and heat that's getting harder and harder to shove in the background.

“Hey, could be worse, yeah? Stroud said he went blind for a week after his joining.” For half a heartbeat the smile on Alistair's face is real enough, but it slips away just as swiftly. “Alright?”

She can feel the tingling spot on her lips where he touched her, and she covers her mouth with her hand.

Not to smother it.

To _save_ it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really really love you guys. That's all I have to say right now. <3

**Author's Note:**

> *waves at you all after 7 months of silence*
> 
> The tumblr nsfw purge really kicked the shit out of my creative motivation, but I'm trying to get back on my feet! 
> 
>  
> 
> Please do check out Sarsaparilla's Bethany/Alistair fic that inspired my love of this tiny ship -- her writing is BEYOND lovely. https://archiveofourown.org/works/6990040/chapters/15928444


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